Why have the Los Angeles Lakers had six different coaches in 13 years… See more
Mike Brown acknowledged he regretted accepting the Los Angeles Lakers coaching position more than ten years after he was dismissed five games into his second season on the team. In an interview with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson for the podcast “All the Smoke,” Brown stated, “I probably wouldn’t do it again.”
NBA Hall of Famer Phil Jackson was just too tough to follow, Brown explained. No one could live up to the standard he had set in L.A. (five NBA titles) and Chicago (six titles).
Brown had known that when he took the job in 2011. He had said as much during his introductory news conference.
“I have great respect for Phil Jackson and all of his accomplishments,” Brown said. “I’m not sure what size shoe he wears. But I’m not here to fill his shoes. I’m here to help this team and this organization carve our own path to success.” But acknowledging how much pressure there is on the head coach of the Lakers and actually living through that pressure are two entirely different things.
Six coaches have tried to fill Jackson’s shoes in the past 13 years. None has lasted more than three seasons. Darvin Ham became the latest to take that fall when he was fired Friday after just two seasons, despite a 90-74 record and a Western Conference finals appearance last season.
Of those six, two went on to win NBA Coach of the Year awards in subsequent jobs — Brown with the Sacramento Kings last season and Mike D’Antoni with the Houston Rockets in 2018 — suggesting it’s not the quality of the coach that determines success or failure on one of the NBA’s biggest stages.
It’s how the coach manages everything else that comes along with guiding the NBA’s glamour franchise. The star-first culture. The magnified lights. The pressurized history.
Ham excelled at that in his first season with the Lakers, deftly navigating the franchise through the awkwardness of the Russell Westbrook era while forging a strong bond with the team’s superstars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and leading the team to an unexpected run to the West finals.
